Hobbs Municipal School District
Introduction
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”
-William Shakespeare
In any new endeavor there are different stages of progress. The first stage is when you start to make ripples in the water. The second is when those ripples become waves. The third is when the tide starts to rise and your ship is ready to sail.
My most important job this year as a new coordinator is to identify the current assets and future opportunities of this Fine Arts program. We will continue to support the strong areas of the program and turn the weaker areas into strengths.
This first semester we have scheduled Fine Arts activities for the full year as evidenced by the Fine Arts Schedule for 2008-2009. Included in this report are all the activities and contracted services that our school district hosted this semester. We will answer the six questions outlined in the guideline as well as offering additional documentation so you can get a small glimpse of the hard work and dedication to the Fine Arts in the HobbsMunicipalSchool District. Our documentationincludes video andpictures to give you living color examples of our Fine Arts programs in action.
This is simply the first act in a very dynamic year in the elementary Fine Arts at HobbsMunicipalSchool District.
We are determined to grow from a teacherdriven program to a results driven program. This school district has a wealth of resources including theFine Arts Grant that has supported many diverse Fine Arts activities each year. Every aspect of this Fine Arts program will be documented and assessed this year then revised as needed for next year. We want to give the students of this district the best we can offer. They deserve nothing less.
Our Current Assets
“A rising tide raises all ships”
– John F. Kennedy
What is working well in our program? List specific activities.
I was fortunate to find a program that already had many positive assets due to the collaborative hard work of Debbie Cooper, Becky McMurray, Rusty Crowe, Kara Wink, Carol Barnes and Wryn Best. We look forward to shoring up these resources and making them even more effective educational tools for our teachers and students. This program’s assets include:
- A very established elementary band mentoring program
- A fully staffed elementary Music program
- Facilities available to all Music teachers to teach a weekly Music class
- Many diverse theatrical opportunities for students to participate in or enjoy as audience members
- A growing list of community partners to help us enrich ourFine Arts programs
- A curriculum that is aligned through the Core Knowledge Curriculum and includes Visual Art, Music and Theatre Arts as major requirements for successful execution of that curriculum
- The revisedNew Mexico State Standards in the Fine Arts to further support and legitimize all Fine Arts Programs statewide
Elementary Music
Music Class
With the help of Carol Barnes, Abby Holmes our new Music Director has done a great job leading a talented group of Music teachers in this first semester.
There are weekly Music classes at each elementary school. Each teacher has a facility whether a room, a stage, or forum to conduct their weekly activities. There is a list of staff, staff schedules and facilities in Appendix A.
This program also has given us a good road map of how to fully staff a program for our Visual Arts studies. They have first brought on Music aides to fill the positions. Many of these aides are also working towards certification in Music. In a few years we expect these salaryline items will grow from aide positions to certified teacher positions as the aides attain their certification. Although the growth is slow and incremental this type of growth will allow this program to become an established program in our district.
Through the grant we have supported this program with salaries and training opportunities.
There is a list of Christmas Programs that was put on by these Musicteachers and their students in Appendix A. This schedule shows the quantity and quality of performances that are made possible by a fully staffed program with regularly scheduled classes.
Band
This Band Program is the crown jewel of our elementary Fine Arts program. Rusty Crowe heads up this very aggressive elementary band mentoring program. It ranges from 6thgrade through middle school andinto high school. The high school band teachers come down every day and mentor our 6thgraders. These teachers fostera district-wide interest in band by helping these young students pick out and start playing an instrument. Instrumental Musictraining is a discipline and with any discipline it requires commitment, adequate practice time and an interest at a young age. These talented high school band teachers hit all three of those benchmarks.
Through the grant we have supported this program with salaries and purchasing band equipment for the 6thgrade students.
A student that enters this band program in 6thgrade will have learned the basics by the time they leaveelementary school. Then they will have practiced and refined their skills for four years by the time they become part of our competitive high school band program. This mentoring system under the direction of Rusty Crow is only three years old and will be a force to be reckoned within the next few years as this program matures and becomes an established band program in the high school.
Elementary Theatre Arts
This semester there were two major contracted services that we hosted in our school district. Missoula Children’s Theatre had three separate week residencies in September and October. The Traveling Lantern had a one week residency in early December.
Missoula Children’s Theatre
The Missoula Children’s TheatreCompany brought us three groups of talented directors. The first week was “Robinson Crusoe” under the direction of Lauren Paige Wilson and Andre Sponder. The participating schools were Jefferson, Stone, Taylor and Edison. There were around 80 students who tried out for parts in the play including 54 students from Jefferson Elementary alone. The principal of Jefferson, Dixie Vejil, kicked off the week with a theme day where all the students could dress up like pirates the Friday before tryouts. Jefferson Elementary earned a trophy for having the most participation from an elementary school in any Missoula Children’s Theatre production. There is a video of the audition and performance of “Robinson Crusoe”from out PR department in Appendix B. The students played Robinson Crusoe, Wilson, Leonard the Leopard and whole lot of other colorful characters.
We instated a new system of supervision to supplement the direction from our directors. It consisted of a group of teachers that signed up to supervise the students by watching the doors and making sure they were picked up by their parents or were available if any other issue came up. This system freed the directors up to run the rehearsal efficiently.
The next performance was “Robin Hood” under the direction of a married couple,Emily and Evan Karlewicz. The participating schools wereCollege Lane, Will Rogers, Sanger and Broadmoor. We had a good audition with over 50 students auditioning. These particular directors were the parents’ favorite. I heard many comments on how well the directors interacted with the students. The students played Robin Hood, Maid Marion, Marion’s Maid, Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham along with many other charismatic Sherwood Forest characters.
The last performance was “Hansel and Gretel” under the direction of Shawna Jean-Marie Smith and Danielle Papet. The participating schools were Mills, Southern Heights, Booker T. Washington and Coronado. We had a good audition with nearly 50 students auditioning. These directors were excellent with every student. When they wanted them to practice a certain procedure (like what not to eat when you are wearing your costume), they put on a one act play to model that behavior. Our students learned a lot about the Theatre from these directors in a very fun way. The students played Hansel, Gretel, the Witchand other mysterious characters.
Through the grant we have supported this program by purchasing their contracted services and lodging for directors. We provided a paid accompanist, Cindy Roberts, for the performance. We also supported their efforts by purchasing promotional materials.
We have promoted all the auditions and performances aggressively. Examples of our newspaper articles, flyers, programs, pictures and evaluations for every performance are included in Appendix B.
Traveling Lantern
The Traveling LanternTheatre Company brought us two directors Greg Lawson & Greg Tankersby from San Diego, California. They know their craft well,yetthey also understandthe elementary student’s mind. At each elementary school, these actors attained control of the crowd early and then had the students’ attention the entire performance of “A Christmas Carol” or “The Caterpillar Hunter” respectively. After the performance they allowed the students to ask questions for about ten minutes about the show. They also broke down the fourth wall and showed the students the behind the scenes tricks of the trade.
Through the grant we have supported this program by purchasing their contracted services.
There were many positive verbal comments from principals and teachers. There were also some written comments that were sent to me following the performance. You can see those comments, the director’s school schedule, pictures and video from some of their school performances in Appendix B.
We also are looking to expand this venue. We are in talks with the parent organization and principal at Stone Elementary. Their parent organization is interested in bringing these actors back to Hobbs to do a unit on Shakespeare with their 6thgrade. It will be in the form of a festival where the school will take one day to focus on a theme like Shakespeare/Elizabethan Times. This will be similar to what the LovingtonSchool District schedules for their “Greek Week”. We look forward to reporting on this pilot program that will be scheduled for thisspring semester at Stone Elementary. If it is successful, we can then offer it to all twelve elementary schools for next year.
We do not currently have a drama teacher at any school. However, this limitation has opened up opportunities such as this Shakespearean Festival Day at Stone Elementary. These scheduled residencies will help construct an excellent system for Theatre Arts education for our school district. This system will be far superior to bringing in a drama teacher for each school with limited professional Theatre experience. We like the idea of bringing in professional actors to teach the state standards. We are fortunate to have many students that already have a healthy interest in the Theatre Arts.
Community Partnerships
Center for the Arts
There is a professional art gallery in downtown Hobbs named The Center for the Arts. It is run by a local arts association. They also provide art classes at this location for elementary students with a wide range of project making activities. There is an example of their two month art class schedule available to our students at The Center for the Arts in Appendix C. Their art teachers have also partnered with Booker T. Washington’s after-school program by providing art classes for their students at the school site this fall. This is also documented in Appendix C.
Through the grant we have supported this program with scholarship monies toward Visual Art classes for our students at The Center for the Arts.
Our elementary schools have their individual art shows the last week in April. They will be judged and those winners will then be exhibited at our district-wideart exhibit the first week in May at The Center for the Arts.
Western Museum
The Western Museum is a great partnership offering field trip opportunities for our students to see art and cultured displays and it is easily accessible to our schools just off of the Lovington Highway in Hobbs.
Through the grant we have supported this program with some funding toward transportation to and from the WesternMuseum.
This semester the museum offered an exhibit of photographs from the different locations along the Rio Grande River. The 4thgrade was the grade selected to visit the exhibit because of what they study in New Mexico History. They are studying the cultures that live along the rivers. The exhibit also focused on the art of photography.
Community Playhouse
One of our Visual Art teachers, Sandi Goad, directed a play this December at the Hobbs Community Playhouse. It was open to all of our students and they had a good turnout at their auditions. The play was called “A Partridge in a Pear Tree”. The Community Playersof Hobbs is a local Theatre company that has scheduled plays for students to participate in from time to time. We look forward to further opportunities opening up at this venue for our students to perform in. There is some additional information regarding this community partner in Appendix C.
MaciolekSchool of Dance
Karen Salb is the director of Maciolek School of Dance. Many of our students attend classes at her very successful School of Dance. There is an example of her program and video of the “Nutcracker Suite”performance put on by her students this December in the Tydings Auditorium in Appendix C.
Karen Salb is going to mentor our PE teachers this January. During those trainings she will model some Dance activities for the PE teachers to use in their Danceunits.
Karen Salb’sDancers are also going to perform some Irish Dancing at Stone and Jefferson Elementary. These schools are sponsoring this pilot program. There is an example of her students performing Irish Dancing in Appendix F. We are going to observe and assess these performances and if they are successful, we will open it up to additional schools next year.
Through the grant we have supported this program by purchasing her contracted services for PE teacher training.
New MexicoJunior College
The New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs has a very active Theatre department. They offer performances to our elementary students every other year. This year they only offered performances to adult audiences. We look forward to scheduling a junior college Theatre performance next year at our elementary schools.
Core Knowledge Curriculum
Year Long Plan
The Core Knowledge curriculum with the leadership of Becky McMurray has given us a clear plan for incorporating Visual Arts, Music, Theater Arts and Dance into the larger Core Knowledge curriculum. This year we are introducing a Year Long Plan that aligns the Visual Art and Musiccurriculum to the state standards and the other subjects in the Core Knowledge Curriculum. The full K-6 Year LongPlan is available in Appendix D. This plan helps the teachers understand how the Fine Arts subjects fit into their overall curriculum.
Core Knowledge Conference
There was a Core Knowledge Conference in Anaheim, California this November. I attended this conference to learn more about our district-wide curriculum and how the Visual Arts, Music, Theatre Arts and Dance can be more integrated into this established curriculum. The syllabi of the training sessions I attended are located in Appendix D.
In between my Core Knowledge workshop days, I also visited the J. Paul Getty Center in Santa Monica, California. While visiting the museum, I saw many fine art pieces in living color like Goya’s “Bullfight” that our students cover in the Core Knowledge Curriculum. I have some pictures of the outside of the J. Paul Getty Center in Appendix D. I didn’t take any pictures of the paintings or sculptures insidethe buildings out of respect for the masterpieces. I do have a guide that has examples of what I saw. It is available in my office and I can send it to you by request due to the size of the document.
Fine ArtsState Standards
I went to the Roswell Hearing on November 25th with the secondary assistant superintendent. We gave public comments on the revised New Mexico State Standards. I gave a vote of confidence on the record regarding the heavily revised Fine Arts standards. We realize how important it is for the State of New Mexico to fully support standards that mandate Fine Arts education K-8. This will continue to legitimize the Fine Arts in the HobbsMunicipalSchool District. Thanks to the hard work by the State Department of Education on revising the Fine Arts standards this year, our students in this district will benefit from a stronger Fine Arts program in years to come.